Living life on the molecular scale, and other random musings from the paradigm of one in seven billion.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

The Other Nobel Prize

It's that time again - the awarding of the Nobel Prize. It's the once a year ceremony that honours the most excellent work in science, literature and economics. It is
the most coveted of scientific awards, and is reserved for those that make the
moon shot, career defining discoveries. The type of discoveries that cure
diseases, that change our understanding of space and time and that alter the
course of humanity. Most people have
heard of the Nobel, and associate it with prestige, authority and the peak
achievement of a scholar or researcher. The winners often go on to enjoy rock
star status amongst not only their peers but also the general public. And so they
should as the work they do defines fields, it saves lives and pushes the
boundaries of human knowledge. It's the reward for those that make the leap and
bounds, the grand discovers, the ones who write the principles in the
textbooks. But along with all that ceremony, all the glamour, it all seems just a little bit....safe. You know it will be a big discovery that will win, and often the only surprise for experts in their field is who will win when.

Most of us will never have one. Image: Wikipedia Commons

But
there is another prize, deserving of as much publicity as the Nobel. And it's one that scientists should also aspire to win. It's
far more humble and doesn't come with prestige or big prize money, but it highlights the quirks of
science. It's the Ig Nobel. A couple of weeks ago the 2016 awards were announced, and once
again I was reminded of why I love this award, and feel it is important to
science beyond a few laughs.

The Ig
Nobel I feel, began as a bit of joke. It was meant to pick out the obscure, the
pedantic and the near silly research that is overlooked and often buried in the
masses of published articles, and allow researchers to have a bit of a giggle at themselves. It was started as a parody of the
Nobel - while the Nobel is all about the big discoveries that move the world,
the Ig Nobel rewards the exact opposite. It's about finding the most tedious,tiny result that matters only to the most specialised.But
the Ig Nobels have moved beyond a few laughs and highlighting just how obscure
discovery can be.This award is rapidly
turning into something else with a bit more meaning. It's becoming a reflection
on the reality of most of science and is a yearly celebration of the less
glorious science. Thereality of science
is that most research isn't big grand discoveries; it's a gradual, tedious
piece by piece collection of knowledge.It's three step forward, and two back. It's people who spend their lives
engrossed by tiny steps in an enzymatic pathway, or a beetle found only on a
tiny island or a motion of a planet lightyears away. The Ig Nobels represent
all that is real about discovery.

Finally, an award that represents most researchers. Image: IgNobel website

This year's Ig Nobel awards have once again highlighted questions
we've all pondered, and the often obscure things that some people tackle as their
life's work. The Ig Nobel motto is "designed to make you laugh, then think", and really I believe, more research needs to apply this motto.
Once you get past the initial randomness or hilarity of a question, you realise
there's actually a lot more depth there, and that seemingly silly or odd
questions can produce surprising data. Big ideas do drive the overall scene, but the devil is in the detail,
and so science moves slowly. Big ideas are great, but they aren't the reality of research. People need to know this, and appreciate it and sometimes the small and odd can have big answers or unexpected applications, and what better way to highlight this than an award that makes people laugh? The Ig Nobel prizes are therefore, important to public awareness of science, promotion of discovery and encouraging curiosity.

While the Nobel prizes represent the big movers and shakers, these are effectively the 1% of the research world. The other 99% are collecting those tiny bits of knowledge that make the collective body of science, and thing is, they are equally vital, and they go hand in hand with the big discoveries.While it's important to have grand moves, without filling in the details, without the little bits of knowledge we never get a collective body of knowledge, we never confirm, and those leaps and bounds have no springboard. Those details, those random finds, they also deserve recognition. The Ig Nobels represent the truth of science in all its obscurity, hilarity, frustration and brilliance.

This
is an award I think all of us scientists should aspire to. The Ig Nobels represent all
that is great about research - odd questions, delving into the unknown, and
having fun along the way. It's an award that inspires creativity and a being a
little off beat, thus bringing a little fun to rigours of research. It is
another way we can show the public the realities of science, and that it's not
big leaps and bounds, but small and slow. But despite how it sounds, there's a
lot of joy and beauty in that too.And
we have to face it, most of us scientists will never come close to taking a
place on the Nobel stage. While it's nice to dream, we have to exist in
reality. The random questions we ask ourselves are much more likely to result
in an Ig Nobel than our chances of all making huge discoveries that change the
scope of a scientific discipline. So for scientists, the Ig Nobel is important,
it represents why we do science, and sometimes we need to be reminded that there
is fun in discovery. Even better, because it is so random really anybody can win, as the only requirements are that the research makes you laugh and it makes you think. Definitely easier than wrangling a Nobel committee member to nominate you!

And just in case you are not convinced about how great the Ig Nobel prize is, I'll let the research speak for itself, with one of my favourite winners. The Ig Nobel prize for Biology in 2011 was awarded to group who discovered jewel beetles (found in Western Australia) have a major case . It turns out the male beetles
have a problem with how they perceive reality, and were mistaking the bumps on
the bottom of beer bottles for female beetles, and were copulating with the bottle. But it didn't end there, the
males actually had a preference for the bumps, and would refuse move even when attacked. This literally was a real world
case of beer goggles. The researchers published
and shortly after the bumps on beer bottles disappeared, though it's not confirmed whether the bottle manufacturers were concerned their design might lead to declining populations of the beetle, or it was just a coincidence. Sometimes
what appears obscure, in fact, can have real world implications. Without those
researchers who decided to examine just what the jewel beetle was up to, who knows? We may have lost another species to extinction for a very obscure reason. You can read all about this awesome piece of work here, and here, and here.

So I offer congratulations to both the winners of the 2016 Nobel Prizes and the 2016 Ig Nobel prizes. You're both, although in very different ways, equally valuable to the scientific community.

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About Me

I like long walks on the beach and dissecting your genetic code. Scientist who does lots of genomics to pay the bills but also fascinated by neuroscience, citizen science and astronomy. Often bakes, knits and enjoys whisky, books and music.
A blog on genomics, biology, medicine and the experiences of a scientist, as well as exploration of the intersection of science and society.
All views expressed on this blog are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer or professional associates.